pendantfandomcom-20200213-history
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Play Text
Dramatis Personae :THESEUS, Duke of Athens. :EGEUS, Father to Hermia. :LYSANDER, in love with Hermia. :DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia. :PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus. :QUINCE, the Carpenter. :SNUG, the Joiner. :BOTTOM, the Weaver. :FLUTE, the Bellows-mender. :SNOUT, the Tinker. :STARVELING, the Tailor. :HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus. :HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. :HELENA, in love with Demetrius. :OBERON, King of the Fairies. :TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies. :PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a Fairy. :PEASBLOSSOM, Fairy. :COBWEB, Fairy. :MOTH, Fairy. :MUSTARDSEED, Fairy. :PYRAMUS, THISBE, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION } Characters in the Interlude performed by the Clowns. :Other Fairies attending their King and Queen. :Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE: Athens, and a wood not far from it. ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. A room in the Palace of THESEUS. THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants. THESEUS :Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour :Draws on apace; four happy days bring in :Another moon; but, oh, methinks, how slow :This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, :Like to a step-dame or a dowager, :Long withering out a young man's revenue. HIPPOLYTA :Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; :Four nights will quickly dream away the time; :And then the moon, like to a silver bow :New bent in heaven, shall behold the night :Of our solemnities. THESEUS : Go, Philostrate, :Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; :Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; :Turn melancholy forth to funerals— :The pale companion is not for our pomp. — PHILOSTRATE. Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, :And won thy love doing thee injuries; :But I will wed thee in another key, :With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling. EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS. EGEUS :Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! THESEUS :Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee? EGEUS :Full of vexation come I, with complaint :Against my child, my daughter Hermia.— :Stand forth, Demetrius.—My noble lord, :This man hath my consent to marry her:— :Stand forth, Lysander;—and, my gracious duke, :This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child. :Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, :And interchang'd love-tokens with my child: :Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, :With feigning voice, verses of feigning love; :And stol'n the impression of her fantasy :With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, :Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats,—messengers :Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth;— :With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart; :Turned her obedience, which is due to me, :To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke, :Be it so she will not here before your grace :Consent to marry with Demetrius, :I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,— :As she is mine I may dispose of her: :Which shall be either to this gentleman :Or to her death; according to our law :Immediately provided in that case. THESEUS :What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid: :To you your father should be as a god; :One that compos'd your beauties: yea, and one :To whom you are but as a form in wax, :By him imprinted, and within his power :To leave the figure, or disfigure it. :Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. HERMIA :So is Lysander. THESEUS : In himself he is: :But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice, :The other must be held the worthier. HERMIA :I would my father look'd but with my eyes. THESEUS :Rather your eyes must with his judgment look. HERMIA :I do entreat your grace to pardon me. :I know not by what power I am made bold, :Nor how it may concern my modesty :In such a presence here to plead my thoughts: :But I beseech your grace that I may know :The worst that may befall me in this case :If I refuse to wed Demetrius. THESEUS :Either to die the death, or to abjure :For ever the society of men. :Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, :Know of your youth, examine well your blood, :Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, :You can endure the livery of a nun; :For aye to be shady cloister mew'd, :To live a barren sister all your life, :Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon. :Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood :To undergo such maiden pilgrimage: :But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd :Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, :Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness. HERMIA :So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, :Ere I will yield my virgin patent up :Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke :My soul consents not to give sovereignty. THESEUS :Take time to pause; and by the next new moon,— :The sealing-day betwixt my love and me :For everlasting bond of fellowship,— :Upon that day either prepare to die :For disobedience to your father's will; :Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would; :Or on Diana's altar to protest :For aye austerity and single life. DEMETRIUS :Relent, sweet Hermia;—and, Lysander, yield :Thy crazed title to my certain right. LYSANDER :You have her father's love, Demetrius; :Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him. EGEUS :Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love; :And what is mine my love shall render him; :And she is mine; and all my right of her :I do estate unto Demetrius. LYSANDER :I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, :As well possess'd; my love is more than his; :My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd, :If not with vantage, as Demetrius's; :And, which is more than all these boasts can be, :I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia: :Why should not I then prosecute my right? :Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head, :Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, :And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes, :Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, :Upon this spotted and inconstant man. THESEUS :I must confess that I have heard so much, :And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; :But, being over-full of self-affairs, :My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come; :And come, Egeus; you shall go with me; :I have some private schooling for you both.— :For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself :To fit your fancies to your father's will, :Or else the law of Athens yields you up,— :Which by no means we may extenuate,— :To death, or to a vow of single life.— :Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love? :Demetrius, and Egeus, go along; :I must employ you in some business :Against our nuptial, and confer with you :Of something nearly that concerns yourselves. EGEUS :With duty and desire we follow you. THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, DEMETRIUS, and Train. LYSANDER :How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale? :How chance the roses there do fade so fast? HERMIA :Belike for want of rain, which I could well :Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. LYSANDER :Ah me! for aught that I could ever read, :Could ever hear by tale or history, :The course of true love never did run smooth: :But either it was different in blood,— HERMIA :O cross! Too high to be enthrall'd to low! LYSANDER :Or else misgraffed in respect of years;— HERMIA :O spite! Too old to be engag'd to young! LYSANDER :Or else it stood upon the choice of friends: HERMIA :O hell! to choose love by another's eye! LYSANDER :Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, :War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it, :Making it momentary as a sound, :Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; :Brief as the lightning in the collied night :That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, :And ere a man hath power to say, Behold! :The jaws of darkness do devour it up: :So quick bright things come to confusion. HERMIA :If then true lovers have ever cross'd, :It stands as an edict in destiny: :Then let us teach our trial patience, :Because it is a customary cross; :As due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, :Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers. LYSANDER :A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. :I have a widow aunt, a dowager :Of great revenue, and she hath no child: :From Athens is her house remote seven leagues; :And she respects me as her only son. :There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee; :And to that place the sharp Athenian law :Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then, :Steal forth thy father's house tomorrow night; :And in the wood, a league without the town, :Where I did meet thee once with Helena, :To do observance to a morn of May, :There will I stay for thee. HERMIA : My good Lysander! :I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow, :By his best arrow, with the golden head, :By the simplicity of Venus' doves, :By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, :And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, :When the false Trojan under sail was seen,— :By all the vows that ever men have broke, :In number more than ever women spoke,— :In that same place thou hast appointed me, :Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee. LYSANDER :Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena. HELENA. HERMIA :God speed fair Helena! Whither away? HELENA :Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. :Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair! :Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air :More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, :When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. :Sickness is catching: O, were favour so, :Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go; :My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, :My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. :Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, :The rest I'd give to be to you translated. :O, teach me how you look; and with what art :You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart! HERMIA :I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. HELENA :O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! HERMIA :I give him curses, yet he gives me love. HELENA :O that my prayers could such affection move! HERMIA :The more I hate, the more he follows me. HELENA :The more I love, the more he hateth me. HERMIA :His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. HELENA :None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine! HERMIA :Take comfort; he no more shall see my face; :Lysander and myself will fly this place.— :Before the time I did Lysander see, :Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me: :O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, :That he hath turn'd a heaven unto hell! LYSANDER :Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: :To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold :Her silver visage in the watery glass, :Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,— :A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,— :Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal. HERMIA :And in the wood where often you and I :Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, :Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, :There my Lysander and myself shall meet: :And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, :To seek new friends and stranger companies. :Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us, :And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!— :Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight :From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight. LYSANDER :I will, my Hermia. HERMIA. LYSANDER : Helena, adieu: :As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! LYSANDER. HELENA :How happy some o'er other some can be! :Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. :But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; :He will not know what all but he do know. :And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, :So I, admiring of his qualities. :Things base and vile, holding no quantity, :Love can transpose to form and dignity. :Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; :And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. :Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; :Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: :And therefore is love said to be a child, :Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd. :As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, :So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere: :For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, :He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine; :And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, :So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt. :I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight; :Then to the wood will he to-morrow night :Pursue her; and for this intelligence :If I have thanks, it is a dear expense: :But herein mean I to enrich my pain, :To have his sight thither and back again. HELENA. SCENE II. The Same. A Room in a Cottage. SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING. QUINCE :Is all our company here? BOTTOM :You were best to call them generally, man by man, :according to the scrip. QUINCE :Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought :fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the :duke and duchess on his wedding-day at night. BOTTOM :First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; :then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point. QUINCE :Marry, our play is—The most lamentable comedy and most :cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. BOTTOM :A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.— :Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.— :Masters, spread yourselves. QUINCE :Answer, as I call you.—Nick Bottom, the weaver. BOTTOM :Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. QUINCE :You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. BOTTOM :What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? QUINCE :A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. BOTTOM :That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. :If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move :storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest:—yet my :chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a :part to tear a cat in, to make all split. :The raging rocks :And shivering shocks :Shall break the locks : Of prison gates: :And Phibbus' car :Shall shine from far, :And make and mar : The foolish Fates. :This was lofty.—Now name the rest of the players.—This is :Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein;—a lover is more condoling. QUINCE :Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. FLUTE :Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE :Flute, you must take Thisby on you. FLUTE :What is Thisby? a wandering knight? QUINCE :It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLUTE :Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. QUINCE :That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as :small as you will. BOTTOM :An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: :I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;—'Thisne, Thisne!'— :'Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!' QUINCE :No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby. BOTTOM :Well, proceed. QUINCE :Robin Starveling, the tailor. STARVELING :Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE :Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.— :Tom Snout, the tinker. SNOUT :Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE :You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father;—Snug, :the joiner, you, the lion's part:—and, I hope, here is a play :fitted. SNUG :Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it :me, for I am slow of study. QUINCE :You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. BOTTOM :Let me play the lion too: I will roar that I will do :any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the :duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.' QUINCE :An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the :duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were :enough to hang us all. ALL :That would hang us every mother's son. BOTTOM :I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies :out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang :us: but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as :gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any :nightingale. QUINCE :You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a :sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's :day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must :needs play Pyramus. BOTTOM :Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? QUINCE :Why, what you will. BOTTOM :I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, :your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your :French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. QUINCE :Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and :then you will play bare-faced.— But, masters, here are your :parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to :con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a :mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse: for :if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our :devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, :such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. BOTTOM :We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely :and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. QUINCE :At the duke's oak we meet. BOTTOM :Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings. Exeunt. ACT II. SCENE I. A wood near Athens. a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another. PUCK :How now, spirit! whither wander you? FAIRY : Over hill, over dale, : Thorough bush, thorough brier, : Over park, over pale, : Thorough flood, thorough fire, : I do wander everywhere, : Swifter than the moon's sphere; : And I serve the fairy queen, : To dew her orbs upon the green. : The cowslips tall her pensioners be: : In their gold coats spots you see; : Those be rubies, fairy favours, : In those freckles live their savours; :I must go seek some dew-drops here, :And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. :Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone: :Our queen and all her elves come here anon. PUCK :The king doth keep his revels here to-night; :Take heed the Queen come not within his sight. :For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, :Because that she, as her attendant, hath :A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king; :She never had so sweet a changeling: :And jealous Oberon would have the child :Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild: :But she perforce withholds the loved boy, :Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy: :And now they never meet in grove or green, :By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, :But they do square; that all their elves for fear :Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there. FAIRY :Either I mistake your shape and making quite, :Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite :Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he :That frights the maidens of the villagery; :Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, :And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; :And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; :Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? :Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, :You do their work, and they shall have good luck: :Are not you he? PUCK : Thou speak'st aright; :I am that merry wanderer of the night. :I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, :When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, :Neighing in likeness of a filly foal; :And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, :In very likeness of a roasted crab; :And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, :And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. :The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, :Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; :Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, :And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; :And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, :And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear :A merrier hour was never wasted there.— :But room, fairy, here comes Oberon. FAIRY :And here my mistress.—Would that he were gone! OBERON at one door, with his Train, and TITANIA, :at another, with hers. OBERON :Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. TITANIA :What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence; :I have forsworn his bed and company. OBERON :Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord? TITANIA :Then I must be thy lady; but I know :When thou hast stol'n away from fairy-land, :And in the shape of Corin sat all day, :Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love :To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, :Come from the farthest steep of India, :But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, :Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love, :To Theseus must be wedded; and you come :To give their bed joy and prosperity. OBERON :How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania, :Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, :Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? :Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night :From Perigenia, whom he ravish'd? :And make him with fair Aegle break his faith, :With Ariadne and Antiopa? TITANIA :These are the forgeries of jealousy: :And never, since the middle summer's spring, :Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, :By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, :Or on the beached margent of the sea, :To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, :But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. :Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, :As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea :Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land, :Hath every pelting river made so proud :That they have overborne their continents: :The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, :The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn :Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard: :The fold stands empty in the drowned field, :And crows are fatted with the murrion flock; :The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud; :And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, :For lack of tread, are undistinguishable: :The human mortals want their winter here; :No night is now with hymn or carol blest:— :Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, :Pale in her anger, washes all the air, :That rheumatic diseases do abound: :And thorough this distemperature we see :The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts :Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; :And on old Hyem's thin and icy crown :An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds :Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer, :The childing autumn, angry winter, change :Their wonted liveries; and the maz'd world, :By their increase, now knows not which is which: :And this same progeny of evils comes :From our debate, from our dissension: :We are their parents and original. OBERON :Do you amend it, then: it lies in you: :Why should Titania cross her Oberon? :I do but beg a little changeling boy :To be my henchman. TITANIA : Set your heart at rest; :The fairy-land buys not the child of me. :His mother was a vot'ress of my order: :And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, :Full often hath she gossip'd by my side; :And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, :Marking the embarked traders on the flood; :When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive, :And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; :Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait :Following,—her womb then rich with my young squire,— :Would imitate; and sail upon the land, :To fetch me trifles, and return again, :As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. :But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; :And for her sake do I rear up her boy: :And for her sake I will not part with him. OBERON :How long within this wood intend you stay? TITANIA :Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. :If you will patiently dance in our round, :And see our moonlight revels, go with us; :If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. OBERON :Give me that boy and I will go with thee. TITANIA :Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away: :We shall chide downright if I longer stay. TITANIA with her Train. OBERON :Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove :Till I torment thee for this injury.— :My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st :Since once I sat upon a promontory, :And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, :Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, :That the rude sea grew civil at her song, :And certain stars shot madly from their spheres :To hear the sea-maid's music. PUCK :: I remember. OBERON :That very time I saw,—but thou couldst not,— :Flying between the cold moon and the earth, :Cupid, all arm'd: a certain aim he took :At a fair vestal, throned by the west; :And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, :As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; :But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft :Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon; :And the imperial votaress passed on, :In maiden meditation, fancy-free. :Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: :It fell upon a little western flower,— :Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,— :And maidens call it love-in-idleness. :Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once: :The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid :Will make or man or woman madly dote :Upon the next live creature that it sees. :Fetch me this herb: and be thou here again :Ere the leviathan can swim a league. PUCK :I'll put a girdle round about the earth :In forty minutes. PUCK. OBERON : Having once this juice, :I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, :And drop the liquor of it in her eyes: :The next thing then she waking looks upon,— :Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, :On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,— :She shall pursue it with the soul of love. :And ere I take this charm from off her sight,— :As I can take it with another herb, :I'll make her render up her page to me. :But who comes here? I am invisible; :And I will overhear their conference. DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. DEMETRIUS :I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. :Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? :The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. :Thou told'st me they were stol'n into this wood, :And here am I, and wode within this wood, :Because I cannot meet with Hermia. :Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. HELENA :You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; :But yet you draw not iron, for my heart :Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw, :And I shall have no power to follow you. DEMETRIUS :Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? :Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth :Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you? HELENA :And even for that do I love you the more. :I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, :The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: :Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, :Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, :Unworthy as I am, to follow you. :What worser place can I beg in your love, :And yet a place of high respect with me,— :Than to be used as you use your dog? DEMETRIUS :Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; :For I am sick when I do look on thee. HELENA :And I am sick when I look not on you. DEMETRIUS :You do impeach your modesty too much, :To leave the city, and commit yourself :Into the hands of one that loves you not; :To trust the opportunity of night, :And the ill counsel of a desert place, :With the rich worth of your virginity. HELENA :Your virtue is my privilege for that. :It is not night when I do see your face, :Therefore I think I am not in the night; :Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company; :For you, in my respect, are all the world: :Then how can it be said I am alone :When all the world is here to look on me? DEMETRIUS :I'll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, :And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts. HELENA :The wildest hath not such a heart as you. :Run when you will, the story shall be chang'd; :Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; :The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind :Makes speed to catch the tiger,—bootless speed, :When cowardice pursues and valour flies. DEMETRIUS :I will not stay thy questions; let me go: :Or, if thou follow me, do not believe :But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. HELENA :Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, :You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! :Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: :We cannot fight for love as men may do: :We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. :I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, :To die upon the hand I love so well. DEMETRIUS and HELENA. OBERON :Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, :Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.— PUCK. Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. PUCK :Ay, there it is. OBERON :: I pray thee give it me. :I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, :Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; :Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, :With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: :There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, :Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight; :And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, :Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: :And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, :And make her full of hateful fantasies. :Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: :A sweet Athenian lady is in love :With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; :But do it when the next thing he espies :May be the lady: thou shalt know the man :By the Athenian garments he hath on. :Effect it with some care, that he may prove :More fond on her than she upon her love: :And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. PUCK :Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so. Exeunt. SCENE II. Another part of the wood. TITANIA, with her Train. TITANIA :Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; :Then, for the third part of a minute, hence; :Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds; :Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, :To make my small elves coats; and some keep back :The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders :At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep; :Then to your offices, and let me rest. SONG. ::: I. FIRST FAIRY : You spotted snakes, with double tongue, : Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; : Newts and blind-worms do no wrong; : Come not near our fairy queen: CHORUS. : Philomel, with melody, : Sing in our sweet lullaby: :Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby: : Never harm, nor spell, nor charm, : Come our lovely lady nigh; : So good-night, with lullaby. ::: II. SECOND FAIRY : Weaving spiders, come not here; : Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence; : Beetles black, approach not near; : Worm nor snail do no offence. CHORUS :Philomel with melody, &c. :FIRST FAIRY :Hence away; now all is well. :One, aloof, stand sentinel. Fairies. TITANIA sleeps. OBERON. OBERON :What thou seest when thou dost wake, :the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids. :Do it for thy true-love take; :Love and languish for his sake; :Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, :Pard, or boar with bristled hair, :In thy eye that shall appear :When thou wak'st, it is thy dear; :Wake when some vile thing is near. Exit. LYSANDER and HERMIA. LYSANDER :Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood; : And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way; :We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, : And tarry for the comfort of the day. HERMIA :Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed, :For I upon this bank will rest my head. LYSANDER :One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; :One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth. HERMIA :Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear, :Lie farther off yet, do not lie so near. LYSANDER :O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence; :Love takes the meaning in love's conference. :I mean that my heart unto yours is knit; :So that but one heart we can make of it: :Two bosoms interchained with an oath; :So then two bosoms and a single troth. :Then by your side no bed-room me deny; :For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie. HERMIA :Lysander riddles very prettily:— :Now much beshrew my manners and my pride :If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied! :But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy :Lie further off; in human modesty, :Such separation as may well be said :Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid: :So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend: :Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end! LYSANDER :Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I; :And then end life when I end loyalty! :Here is my bed: Sleep give thee all his rest! HERMIA :With half that wish the wisher's eyes be pressed! sleep. PUCK. PUCK : Through the forest have I gone, : But Athenian found I none, : On whose eyes I might approve : This flower's force in stirring love. : Night and silence! Who is here? : Weeds of Athens he doth wear: : This is he, my master said, : Despised the Athenian maid; : And here the maiden, sleeping sound, : On the dank and dirty ground. : Pretty soul! she durst not lie : Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. : Churl, upon thy eyes I throw : All the power this charm doth owe; : When thou wak'st let love forbid : Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: : So awake when I am gone; : For I must now to Oberon. Exit. DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running. HELENA :Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius. DEMETRIUS :I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus. HELENA :O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so. DEMETRIUS. :Stay on thy peril; I alone will go. DEMETRIUS. HELENA :O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! :The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. :Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies, :For she hath blessed and attractive eyes. :How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears: :If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers. :No, no, I am as ugly as a bear; :For beasts that meet me run away for fear: :Therefore no marvel though Demetrius :Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus. :What wicked and dissembling glass of mine :Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?— :But who is here?—Lysander! on the ground! :Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound. :Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake. LYSANDER :Waking. :And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake. :Transparent Helena! Nature shows art, :That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart. :Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word :Is that vile name to perish on my sword! HELENA :Do not say so, Lysander; say not so: :What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though? :Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content. LYSANDER. :Content with Hermia? No: I do repent :The tedious minutes I with her have spent. :Not Hermia but Helena I love: :Who will not change a raven for a dove? :The will of man is by his reason sway'd; :And reason says you are the worthier maid. :Things growing are not ripe until their season; :So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason; :And touching now the point of human skill, :Reason becomes the marshal to my will, :And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook :Love's stories, written in love's richest book. HELENA :Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? :When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? :Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, :That I did never, no, nor never can :Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, :But you must flout my insufficiency? :Good troth, you do me wrong,—good sooth, you do— :In such disdainful manner me to woo. :But fare you well: perforce I must confess, :I thought you lord of more true gentleness. :O, that a lady of one man refus'd :Should of another therefore be abus'd! Exit. LYSANDER :She sees not Hermia:—Hermia, sleep thou there; :And never mayst thou come Lysander near! :For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things :The deepest loathing to the stomach brings; :Or, as the heresies that men do leave :Are hated most of those they did deceive; :So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, :Of all be hated, but the most of me! :And, all my powers, address your love and might :To honour Helen, and to be her knight! Exit. HERMIA :Starting. :Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best :To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast! :Ay me, for pity!—What a dream was here! :Lysander, look how I do quake with fear! :Methought a serpent eat my heart away, :And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.— :Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord! :What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word? :Alack, where are you? speak, an if you hear; :Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear. :No?—then I well perceive you are not nigh: :Either death or you I'll find immediately. Exit. ACT III. SCENE I. The Wood. The Queen of Fairies lying asleep. QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. BOTTOM :Are we all met? QUINCE :Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our :rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn :brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will :do it before the duke. BOTTOM :Peter Quince,— QUINCE :What sayest thou, bully Bottom? BOTTOM :There are things in this comedy of 'Pyramus and Thisby' that :will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill :himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that? SNOUT :By'r lakin, a parlous fear. STARVELING :I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done. BOTTOM :Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a :prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm :with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for :the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not :Pyramus but Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear. QUINCE :Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be :written in eight and six. BOTTOM :No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight. SNOUT :Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion? STARVELING :I fear it, I promise you. BOTTOM :Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, :God shield us! a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing: :for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; :and we ought to look to it. SNOUT :Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion. BOTTOM :Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen :through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through, :saying thus, or to the same defect,—'Ladies,' or, 'Fair ladies, I :would wish you, or, I would request you, or, I would entreat you, :not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I :come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such :thing; I am a man as other men are:'—and there, indeed, let him :name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner. QUINCE :Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that :is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber: for, you know, :Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight. SNOUT :Doth the moon shine that night we play our play? BOTTOM :A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanack; find out :moonshine, find out moonshine. QUINCE :Yes, it doth shine that night. BOTTOM :Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber-window, :where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement. QUINCE :Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a :lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person :of moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a :wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the :story, did talk through the chink of a wall. SNOUT :You can never bring in a wall.—What say you, Bottom? BOTTOM :Some man or other must present wall: and let him have :some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to :signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that :cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper. QUINCE :If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every :mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: :when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so :every one according to his cue. PUCK behind. PUCK :What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, :So near the cradle of the fairy queen? :What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor; :An actor too perhaps, if I see cause. QUINCE :Speak, Pyramus.—Thisby, stand forth. PYRAMUS : 'Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,' QUINCE :Odours, odours. PYRAMUS : '—odours savours sweet: : So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.— :But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile, : And by and by I will to thee appear.' Exit. PUCK :A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here! Aside.—Exit. THISBE :Must I speak now? QUINCE :Ay, marry, must you: for you must understand he goes :but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again. THISBE : 'Most radiant Pyramus, most lily white of hue, : Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier, :Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew, : As true as truest horse, that would never tire, :I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.' QUINCE :Ninus' tomb, man: why, you must not speak that yet: :that you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, :cues, and all.—Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never :tire.' PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head. THISBE :O,'—As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.' PYRAMUS :'If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine:—' QUINCE :O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters! :fly, masters! Help! Clowns. PUCK :I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round, : Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier; :Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, : A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; :And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, :Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. Exit. BOTTOM :Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make :me afeard. SNOUT. SNOUT :O Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee? BOTTOM :What do you see? you see an ass-head of your own, do you? QUINCE. QUINCE :Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated. Exit. BOTTOM :I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to :fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this :place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, :and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. Sings. : The ousel cock, so black of hue, : With orange-tawny bill, : The throstle with his note so true, : The wren with little quill. TITANIA :Waking. :What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? BOTTOM :Sings. : The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, : The plain-song cuckoo gray, : Whose note full many a man doth mark, : And dares not answer nay;— :for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? :Who would give a bird the lie, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so? TITANIA :I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again; :Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note. :So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; :And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, :On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee. BOTTOM :Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for :that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little :company together now-a-days: the more the pity that some honest :neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon :occasion. TITANIA :Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. BOTTOM :Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of :this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn. TITANIA :Out of this wood do not desire to go; :Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no. :I am a spirit of no common rate,— :The summer still doth tend upon my state; :And I do love thee: therefore, go with me, :I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee; :And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, :And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep: :And I will purge thy mortal grossness so :That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.— :Peasblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed! Four Fairies. FIRST FAIRY :Ready. SECOND FAIRY :: And I. THIRD FAIRY ::: And I. FOURTH FAIRY :::: Where shall we go? TITANIA :Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; :Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; :Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, :With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; :The honey bags steal from the humble-bees, :And, for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs, :And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, :To have my love to bed and to arise; :And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, :To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes: :Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. FIRST FAIRY :Hail, mortal! SECOND FAIRY :: Hail! THIRD FAIRY ::: Hail! FOURTH FAIRY :::: Hail! BOTTOM :I cry your worships mercy, heartily.—I beseech your :worship's name. COBWEB :Cobweb. BOTTOM :I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb. If I :cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.—Your name, honest :gentleman? PEASBLOSSOM :Peasblossom. BOTTOM :I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and :to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peasblossom, I :shall desire you of more acquaintance too.—Your name, I beseech :you, sir? MUSTARDSEED :Mustardseed. BOTTOM :Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well: :That same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a :gentleman of your house: I promise you your kindred hath made my :eyes water ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good :Master Mustardseed. TITANIA : Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower. : The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye; :And when she weeps, weeps every little flower; : Lamenting some enforcèd chastity. : Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently. Exeunt. SCENE II. Another part of the wood. OBERON. OBERON :I wonder if Titania be awak'd; :Then, what it was that next came in her eye, :Which she must dote on in extremity. PUCK. Here comes my messenger.—How now, mad spirit? :What night-rule now about this haunted grove? PUCK :My mistress with a monster is in love. :Near to her close and consecrated bower, :While she was in her dull and sleeping hour, :A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, :That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, :Were met together to rehearse a play :Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day. :The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort :Who Pyramus presented in their sport, :Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake; :When I did him at this advantage take, :An ass's nowl I fixèd on his head; :Anon, his Thisbe must be answered, :And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy, :As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, :Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, :Rising and cawing at the gun's report, :Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky, :So at his sight away his fellows fly: :And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls; :He murder cries, and help from Athens calls. :Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears, thus strong, :Made senseless things begin to do them wrong; :For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch; :Some sleeves, some hats: from yielders all things catch. :I led them on in this distracted fear, :And left sweet Pyramus translated there: :When in that moment,—so it came to pass,— :Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass. OBERON :This falls out better than I could devise. :But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes :With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do? PUCK :I took him sleeping,—that is finish'd too,— :And the Athenian woman by his side; :That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd. DEMETRIUS and HERMIA. OBERON :Stand close; this is the same Athenian. PUCK :This is the woman, but not this the man. DEMETRIUS :O, why rebuke you him that loves you so? :Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe. HERMIA :Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse; :For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse. :If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, :Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep, :And kill me too. :The sun was not so true unto the day :As he to me: would he have stol'n away :From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon :This whole earth may be bor'd; and that the moon :May through the centre creep and so displease :Her brother's noontide with the antipodes. :It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him; :So should a murderer look; so dead, so grim. DEMETRIUS :So should the murder'd look; and so should I, :Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty: :Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear, :As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere. HERMIA :What's this to my Lysander? where is he? :Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me? DEMETRIUS :I had rather give his carcass to my hounds. HERMIA :Out, dog! out, cur! thou driv'st me past the bounds :Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then? :Henceforth be never number'd among men! :Oh! once tell true; tell true, even for my sake; :Durst thou have look'd upon him, being awake, :And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch! :Could not a worm, an adder, do so much? :An adder did it; for with doubler tongue :Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung. DEMETRIUS :You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood: :I am not guilty of Lysander's blood; :Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell. HERMIA :I pray thee, tell me, then, that he is well. DEMETRIUS :An if I could, what should I get therefore? HERMIA :A privilege never to see me more.— :And from thy hated presence part I so: :See me no more whether he be dead or no. Exit. DEMETRIUS :There is no following her in this fierce vein: :Here, therefore, for a while I will remain. :So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow :For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe; :Which now in some slight measure it will pay, :If for his tender here I make some stay. down. OBERON :What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite, :And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight: :Of thy misprision must perforce ensue :Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true. PUCK :Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth, :A million fail, confounding oath on oath. OBERON :About the wood go, swifter than the wind, :And Helena of Athens look thou find: :All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer, :With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear. :By some illusion see thou bring her here; :I'll charm his eyes against she do appear. PUCK :I go, I go; look how I go,— :Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow. Exit. OBERON : Flower of this purple dye, : Hit with Cupid's archery, : Sink in apple of his eye! : When his love he doth espy, : Let her shine as gloriously : As the Venus of the sky.— : When thou wak'st, if she be by, : Beg of her for remedy. PUCK. PUCK : Captain of our fairy band, : Helena is here at hand, : And the youth mistook by me : Pleading for a lover's fee; : Shall we their fond pageant see? : Lord, what fools these mortals be! OBERON : Stand aside: the noise they make : Will cause Demetrius to awake. PUCK : Then will two at once woo one,— : That must needs be sport alone; : And those things do best please me : That befall preposterously. LYSANDER and HELENA. LYSANDER :Why should you think that I should woo in scorn? : Scorn and derision never come in tears. :Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, : In their nativity all truth appears. :How can these things in me seem scorn to you, :Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true? HELENA :You do advance your cunning more and more. : When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray! :These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er? : Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh: :Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, :Will even weigh; and both as light as tales. LYSANDER :I had no judgment when to her I swore. HELENA :Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er. LYSANDER :Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you. DEMETRIUS :Awaking. :O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! :To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? :Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show :Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! :That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow, :Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow :When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss :This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss! HELENA :O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent :To set against me for your merriment. :If you were civil, and knew courtesy, :You would not do me thus much injury. :Can you not hate me, as I know you do, :But you must join in souls to mock me too? :If you were men, as men you are in show, :You would not use a gentle lady so; :To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, :When I am sure you hate me with your hearts. :You both are rivals, and love Hermia; :And now both rivals, to mock Helena: :A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, :To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes :With your derision! None of noble sort :Would so offend a virgin, and extort :A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport. LYSANDER :You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so; :For you love Hermia: this you know I know: :And here, with all good will, with all my heart, :In Hermia's love I yield you up my part; :And yours of Helena to me bequeath, :Whom I do love and will do till my death. HELENA :Never did mockers waste more idle breath. DEMETRIUS :Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none: :If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone. :My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd; :And now to Helen is it home return'd, :There to remain. LYSANDER :: Helen, it is not so. DEMETRIUS :Disparage not the faith thou dost not know, :Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.— :Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear. HERMIA. HERMIA :Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, :The ear more quick of apprehension makes; :Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, :It pays the hearing double recompense:— :Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found; :Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound. :But why unkindly didst thou leave me so? LYSANDER :Why should he stay whom love doth press to go? HERMIA :What love could press Lysander from my side? LYSANDER :Lysander's love, that would not let him bide,— :Fair Helena,—who more engilds the night :Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light. :Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know :The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so? HERMIA :You speak not as you think; it cannot be. HELENA :Lo, she is one of this confederacy! :Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three :To fashion this false sport in spite of me. :Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! :Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd, :To bait me with this foul derision? :Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd, :The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, :When we have chid the hasty-footed time :For parting us,—O, is all forgot? :All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence? :We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, :Have with our needles created both one flower, :Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, :Both warbling of one song, both in one key; :As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, :Had been incorporate. So we grew together, :Like to a double cherry, seeming parted; :But yet a union in partition, :Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: :So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; :Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, :Due but to one, and crowned with one crest. :And will you rent our ancient love asunder, :To join with men in scorning your poor friend? :It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly: :Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it, :Though I alone do feel the injury. HERMIA :I am amazed at your passionate words: :I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me. HELENA :Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, :To follow me, and praise my eyes and face? :And made your other love, Demetrius,— :Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,— :To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare, :Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this :To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander :Deny your love, so rich within his soul, :And tender me, forsooth, affection, :But by your setting on, by your consent? :What though I be not so in grace as you, :So hung upon with love, so fortunate; :But miserable most, to love unlov'd? :This you should pity rather than despise. HERMIA :I understand not what you mean by this. HELENA :Ay, do persever, counterfeit sad looks, :Make mows upon me when I turn my back; :Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up: :This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled. :If you have any pity, grace, or manners, :You would not make me such an argument. :But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault; :Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy. LYSANDER :Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse; :My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena! HELENA :O excellent! HERMIA : Sweet, do not scorn her so. DEMETRIUS :If she cannot entreat, I can compel. LYSANDER :Thou canst compel no more than she entreat; :Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.— :Helen, I love thee; by my life I do; :I swear by that which I will lose for thee :To prove him false that says I love thee not. DEMETRIUS :I say I love thee more than he can do. LYSANDER :If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too. DEMETRIUS :Quick, come,— HERMIA :: Lysander, whereto tends all this? LYSANDER :Away, you Ethiope! DEMETRIUS : No, no, sir:—he will :Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow: :But yet come not. You are a tame man; go! LYSANDER :Hang off, thou cat, thou burr: vile thing, let loose, :Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent. HERMIA :Why are you grown so rude? what change is this, :Sweet love? LYSANDER : Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out! :Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence! HERMIA :Do you not jest? HELENA : Yes, sooth; and so do you. LYSANDER :Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. DEMETRIUS :I would I had your bond; for I perceive :A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word. LYSANDER :What! should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead? :Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so. HERMIA :What! can you do me greater harm than hate? :Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love? :Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander? :I am as fair now as I was erewhile. :Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me: :Why then, you left me,—O, the gods forbid!— :In earnest, shall I say? LYSANDER : Ay, by my life; :And never did desire to see thee more. :Therefore be out of hope, of question, doubt, :Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest :That I do hate thee and love Helena. HERMIA :O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom! :You thief of love! What! have you come by night, :And stol'n my love's heart from him? HELENA : Fine, i' faith! :Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, :No touch of bashfulness? What! will you tear :Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? :Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you! HERMIA :Puppet! why so? Ay, that way goes the game. :Now I perceive that she hath made compare :Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height; :And with her personage, her tall personage, :Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.— :And are you grown so high in his esteem :Because I am so dwarfish and so low? :How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak; :How low am I? I am not yet so low :But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. HELENA :I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, :Let her not hurt me. I was never curst; :I have no gift at all in shrewishness; :I am a right maid for my cowardice; :Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, :Because she is something lower than myself, :That I can match her. HERMIA :: Lower! hark, again. HELENA :Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. :I evermore did love you, Hermia; :Did ever keep your counsels; never wrong'd you; :Save that, in love unto Demetrius, :I told him of your stealth unto this wood: :He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him; :But he hath chid me hence, and threaten'd me :To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too: :And now, so you will let me quiet go, :To Athens will I bear my folly back, :And follow you no farther. Let me go: :You see how simple and how fond I am. HERMIA :Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you? HELENA :A foolish heart that I leave here behind. HERMIA :What! with Lysander? HELENA : With Demetrius. LYSANDER :Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena. DEMETRIUS :No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part. HELENA :O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd: :She was a vixen when she went to school; :And, though she be but little, she is fierce. HERMIA :Little again! nothing but low and little!— :Why will you suffer her to flout me thus? :Let me come to her. LYSANDER : Get you gone, you dwarf; :You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made; :You bead, you acorn. DEMETRIUS : You are too officious :In her behalf that scorns your services. :Let her alone: speak not of Helena; :Take not her part; for if thou dost intend :Never so little show of love to her, :Thou shalt aby it. LYSANDER : Now she holds me not; :Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right, :Of thine or mine, is most in Helena. DEMETRIUS :Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole. LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS. HERMIA :You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you: :Nay, go not back. HELENA : I will not trust you, I; :Nor longer stay in your curst company. :Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray; :My legs are longer though, to run away. Exit. HERMIA :I am amaz'd, and know not what to say. pursuing HELENA. OBERON :This is thy negligence: still thou mistak'st, :Or else commit'st thy knaveries willfully. PUCK :Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook. :Did not you tell me I should know the man :By the Athenian garments he had on? :And so far blameless proves my enterprise :That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes: :And so far am I glad it so did sort, :As this their jangling I esteem a sport. OBERON :Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight; :Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night; :The starry welkin cover thou anon :With drooping fog, as black as Acheron, :And lead these testy rivals so astray :As one come not within another's way. :Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue, :Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong; :And sometime rail thou like Demetrius; :And from each other look thou lead them thus, :Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep :With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep: :Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye; :Whose liquor hath this virtuous property, :To take from thence all error with his might :And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight. :When they next wake, all this derision :Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision; :And back to Athens shall the lovers wend :With league whose date till death shall never end. :Whiles I in this affair do thee employ, :I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy; :And then I will her charmed eye release :From monster's view, and all things shall be peace. PUCK :My fairy lord, this must be done with haste, :For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast; :And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger, :At whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, :Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all, :That in cross-ways and floods have burial, :Already to their wormy beds are gone; :For fear lest day should look their shames upon :They wilfully exile themselves from light, :And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night. OBERON :But we are spirits of another sort: :I with the morning's love have oft made sport; :And, like a forester, the groves may tread :Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red, :Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, :Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams. :But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay: :We may effect this business yet ere day. OBERON. PUCK : Up and down, up and down; : I will lead them up and down: : I am fear'd in field and town. : Goblin, lead them up and down. :Here comes one. LYSANDER. LYSANDER :Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now. PUCK :Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou? LYSANDER :I will be with thee straight. PUCK : Follow me, then, :To plainer ground. LYSANDER as following the voice. DEMETRIUS. DEMETRIUS : Lysander! speak again. :Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? :Speak. In some bush? where dost thou hide thy head? PUCK :Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, :Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, :And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child; :I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled :That draws a sword on thee. DEMETRIUS : Yea, art thou there? PUCK :Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here. Exeunt. LYSANDER. LYSANDER :He goes before me, and still dares me on; :When I come where he calls, then he is gone. :The villain is much lighter heeled than I: :I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly; :That fallen am I in dark uneven way, :And here will rest me. Come, thou gentle day! :down. :For if but once thou show me thy grey light, :I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite. Sleeps. PUCK and DEMETRIUS. PUCK :Ho, ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not? DEMETRIUS :Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot :Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place; :And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face. :Where art thou? PUCK : Come hither; I am here. DEMETRIUS :Nay, then, thou mock'st me. :Thou shalt buy this dear, :If ever I thy face by daylight see: :Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me :To measure out my length on this cold bed.— :By day's approach look to be visited. down and sleeps. HELENA. HELENA :O weary night, O long and tedious night, :Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east, :That I may back to Athens by daylight, :From these that my poor company detest:— :And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, :Steal me awhile from mine own company. Sleeps. PUCK : Yet but three? Come one more; : Two of both kinds makes up four. : Here she comes, curst and sad:— : Cupid is a knavish lad, : Thus to make poor females mad. HERMIA. HERMIA :Never so weary, never so in woe, : Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers; :I can no further crawl, no further go; : My legs can keep no pace with my desires. :Here will I rest me till the break of day. :Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray! down. PUCK : On the ground : Sleep sound: : I'll apply : To your eye, : Gentle lover, remedy. the juice on LYSANDER'S eye. : When thou wak'st, : Thou tak'st : True delight : In the sight :Of thy former lady's eye: :And the country proverb known, :That every man should take his own, :In your waking shall be shown: : Jack shall have Jill; : Nought shall go ill; :The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well. PUCK.—DEMETRIUS, HELENA &c, sleep. ACT IV SCENE I. The Wood. TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, :MUSTARDSEED, and other FAIRIES attending; OBERON behind, unseen. TITANIA :Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, : While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, :And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, : And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. BOTTOM :Where's Peasblossom? PEASBLOSSOM :Ready. BOTTOM :Scratch my head, Peasblossom.— :Where's Monsieur Cobweb? COBWEB :Ready. BOTTOM :Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get you your weapons in :your hand and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a :thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not :fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good :monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be :loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior.— :Where's Monsieur Mustardseed? MUSTARDSEED :Ready. BOTTOM :Give me your neif, Monsieur Mustardseed. :Pray you, leave your curtsy, good monsieur. MUSTARDSEED :What's your will? BOTTOM :Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalero Cobweb to :scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for methinks I am :marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, :if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch. TITANIA :What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? BOTTOM :I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have the :tongs and the bones. TITANIA :Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat. BOTTOM :Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry :oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good :hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. TITANIA :I have a venturous fairy that shall seek :The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts. BOTTOM :I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, :I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an :exposition of sleep come upon me. TITANIA :Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. :Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away. :So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle :Gently entwist,—the female ivy so :Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. :O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! sleep. advances. Enter PUCK. OBERON :Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight? :Her dotage now I do begin to pity. :For, meeting her of late behind the wood, :Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool, :I did upbraid her and fall out with her: :For she his hairy temples then had rounded :With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers; :And that same dew, which sometime on the buds :Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, :Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes, :Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail. :When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her, :And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience, :I then did ask of her her changeling child; :Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent :To bear him to my bower in fairy-land. :And now I have the boy, I will undo :This hateful imperfection of her eyes. :And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp :From off the head of this Athenian swain, :That he awaking when the other do, :May all to Athens back again repair, :And think no more of this night's accidents :But as the fierce vexation of a dream. :But first I will release the fairy queen. : Be as thou wast wont to be; :her eyes with an herb. : See as thou was wont to see. : Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower : Hath such force and blessed power. :Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen. TITANIA :My Oberon! what visions have I seen! :Methought I was enamour'd of an ass. OBERON :There lies your love. TITANIA : How came these things to pass? :O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now! OBERON :Silence awhile.—Robin, take off this head. :Titania, music call; and strike more dead :Than common sleep, of all these five, the sense. TITANIA :Music, ho! music; such as charmeth sleep. PUCK :Now when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep. OBERON :Sound, music. music. Come, my queen, take hands with me, :And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. :Now thou and I are new in amity, :And will to-morrow midnight solemnly :Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, :And bless it to all fair prosperity: :There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be :Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. PUCK :Fairy king, attend and mark; :I do hear the morning lark. OBERON : Then, my queen, in silence sad, : Trip we after night's shade. : We the globe can compass soon, : Swifter than the wand'ring moon. TITANIA : Come, my lord; and in our flight, : Tell me how it came this night : That I sleeping here was found : With these mortals on the ground. Horns sound within. THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train. THESEUS :Go, one of you, find out the forester;— :For now our observation is perform'd; :And since we have the vaward of the day, :My love shall hear the music of my hounds,— :Uncouple in the western valley; go:— :Despatch, I say, and find the forester.— an ATTENDANT. :We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, :And mark the musical confusion :Of hounds and echo in conjunction. HIPPOLYTA :I was with Hercules and Cadmus once :When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear :With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear :Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves, :The skies, the fountains, every region near :Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard :So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. THESEUS :My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, :So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung :With ears that sweep away the morning dew; :Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls; :Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, :Each under each. A cry more tuneable :Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, :In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. :Judge when you hear.—But, soft, what nymphs are these? EGEUS :My lord, this is my daughter here asleep; :And this Lysander; this Demetrius is; :This Helena, old Nedar's Helena: :I wonder of their being here together. THESEUS :No doubt they rose up early to observe :The rite of May; and, hearing our intent, :Came here in grace of our solemnity.— :But speak, Egeus; is not this the day :That Hermia should give answer of her choice? EGEUS :It is, my lord. THESEUS :Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDER,HERMIA, and HELENA awake and start up. :Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past; :Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? LYSANDER :Pardon, my lord. and the rest kneel to THESEUS. THESEUS : I pray you all, stand up. :I know you two are rival enemies; :How comes this gentle concord in the world, :That hatred is so far from jealousy :To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? LYSANDER :My lord, I shall reply amazedly, :Half 'sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear, :I cannot truly say how I came here: :But, as I think,—for truly would I speak— :And now I do bethink me, so it is,— :I came with Hermia hither: our intent :Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be, :Without the peril of the Athenian law. EGEUS :Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough; :I beg the law, the law upon his head.— :They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius, :Thereby to have defeated you and me: :You of your wife, and me of my consent,— :Of my consent that she should be your wife. DEMETRIUS :My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, :Of this their purpose hither to this wood; :And I in fury hither follow'd them, :Fair Helena in fancy following me. :But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,— :But by some power it is,—my love to Hermia, :Melted as the snow—seems to me now :As the remembrance of an idle gawd :Which in my childhood I did dote upon: :And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, :The object and the pleasure of mine eye, :Is only Helena. To her, my lord, :Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia: :But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food; :But, as in health, come to my natural taste, :Now I do wish it, love it, long for it, :And will for evermore be true to it. THESEUS :Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: :Of this discourse we more will hear anon.— :Egeus, I will overbear your will; :For in the temple, by and by with us, :These couples shall eternally be knit. :And, for the morning now is something worn, :Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.— :Away with us to Athens, three and three, :We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.— :Come, Hippolyta. THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train. DEMETRIUS :These things seem small and undistinguishable, :Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. HERMIA :Methinks I see these things with parted eye, :When every thing seems double. HELENA ::: So methinks: :And I have found Demetrius like a jewel. :Mine own, and not mine own. DEMETRIUS ::: It seems to me :That yet we sleep, we dream.—Do not you think :The duke was here, and bid us follow him? HERMIA :Yea, and my father. HELENA : And Hippolyta. LYSANDER :And he did bid us follow to the temple. DEMETRIUS :Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him; :And by the way let us recount our dreams. Exeunt. they go out, BOTTOM awakes. BOTTOM :When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is 'Most :fair Pyramus.'—Heigh-ho!—Peter Quince! Flute, the :bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, :stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare :vision. I have had a dream—past the wit of man to say :what dream it was.—Man is but an ass if he go about :to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell :what. Methought I was, and methought I had,—but man is but a :patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The :eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's :hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart :to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a :ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because :it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a :play, before the duke: peradventure, to make it the more :gracious, I shall sing it at her death. Exit. SCENE II. Athens. A Room in QUINCE'S House. QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. QUINCE :Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet? STARVELING :He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported. FLUTE :If he come not, then the play is marred; it goes not :forward, doth it? QUINCE :It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens :able to discharge Pyramus but he. FLUTE :No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in :Athens. QUINCE :Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour :for a sweet voice. FLUTE :You must say paragon: a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of :naught. SNUG. SNUG :Masters, the duke is coming from the temple; and there is :two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone :forward, we had all been made men. FLUTE :O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day :during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day; an :the duke had not given him sixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, :I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a-day in :Pyramus, or nothing. BOTTOM. BOTTOM :Where are these lads? where are these hearts? QUINCE :Bottom!—O most courageous day! O most happy hour! BOTTOM :Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not :what; for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you :everything, right as it fell out. QUINCE :Let us hear, sweet Bottom. BOTTOM :Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the :duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to :your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the :palace; every man look over his part; for the short and the long :is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean :linen; and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for :they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, :eat no onions nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and :I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more :words: away! go; away! Exeunt. ACT V SCENE I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of THESEUS. THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants. HIPPOLYTA :'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. THESEUS :More strange than true. I never may believe :These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. :Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, :Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend :More than cool reason ever comprehends. :The lunatic, the lover, and the poet :Are of imagination all compact: :One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; :That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, :Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: :The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, :Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; :And as imagination bodies forth :The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen :Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing :A local habitation and a name. :Such tricks hath strong imagination, :That, if it would but apprehend some joy, :It comprehends some bringer of that joy; :Or in the night, imagining some fear, :How easy is a bush supposed a bear? HIPPOLYTA :But all the story of the night told over, :And all their minds transfigur'd so together, :More witnesseth than fancy's images, :And grows to something of great constancy; :But, howsoever, strange and admirable. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA. THESEUS :Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.— :Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love :Accompany your hearts! LYSANDER :: More than to us :Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed! THESEUS :Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have, :To wear away this long age of three hours :Between our after-supper and bed-time? :Where is our usual manager of mirth? :What revels are in hand? Is there no play :To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? :Call Philostrate. PHILOSTRATE :: Here, mighty Theseus. THESEUS :Say, what abridgment have you for this evening? :What masque? what music? How shall we beguile :The lazy time, if not with some delight? PHILOSTRATE :There is a brief how many sports are ripe; :Make choice of which your highness will see first. a paper. THESEUS :Reads. : 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung : By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.' :We'll none of that: that have I told my love, :In glory of my kinsman Hercules. : 'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals, : Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.' :That is an old device, and it was play'd :When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. : 'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death : Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary.' :That is some satire, keen and critical, :Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. : 'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus : And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.' :Merry and tragical! tedious and brief! :That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow. :How shall we find the concord of this discord? PHILOSTRATE :A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, :Which is as brief as I have known a play; :But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, :Which makes it tedious: for in all the play :There is not one word apt, one player fitted: :And tragical, my noble lord, it is; :For Pyramus therein doth kill himself: :Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess, :Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears :The passion of loud laughter never shed. THESEUS :What are they that do play it? PHILOSTRATE :Hard-handed men that work in Athens here, :Which never labour'd in their minds till now; :And now have toil'd their unbreath'd memories :With this same play against your nuptial. THESEUS :And we will hear it. PHILOSTRATE : No, my noble lord, :It is not for you: I have heard it over, :And it is nothing, nothing in the world; :Unless you can find sport in their intents, :Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain, :To do you service. THESEUS : I will hear that play; :For never anything can be amiss :When simpleness and duty tender it. :Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies. PHILOSTRATE. HIPPOLYTA :I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged, :And duty in his service perishing. THESEUS :Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. HIPPOLYTA :He says they can do nothing in this kind. THESEUS :The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. :Our sport shall be to take what they mistake: :And what poor duty cannot do, :Noble respect takes it in might, not merit. :Where I have come, great clerks have purposed :To greet me with premeditated welcomes; :Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, :Make periods in the midst of sentences, :Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, :And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, :Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, :Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome; :And in the modesty of fearful duty :I read as much as from the rattling tongue :Of saucy and audacious eloquence. :Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity :In least speak most to my capacity. PHILOSTRATE. PHILOSTRATE :So please your grace, the prologue is address'd. THESEUS :Let him approach. of trumpets. Enter PROLOGUE. PROLOGUE :'If we offend, it is with our good will. : That you should think, we come not to offend, :But with good will. To show our simple skill, : That is the true beginning of our end. :Consider then, we come but in despite. : We do not come, as minding to content you, :Our true intent is. All for your delight : We are not here. That you should here repent you, :The actors are at hand: and, by their show, :You shall know all that you are like to know,' THESEUS :This fellow doth not stand upon points. LYSANDER :He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows :not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, :but to speak true. HIPPOLYTA :Indeed he hath played on this prologue like a child :on a recorder; a sound, but not in government. THESEUS :His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all :disordered. Who is next? PYRAMUS and THISBE, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION, as in dumb :show. PROLOGUE :Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show; : But wonder on, till truth make all things plain. :This man is Pyramus, if you would know; : This beauteous lady Thisby is certain. :This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present : Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder; :And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content : To whisper, at the which let no man wonder. :This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn, : Presenteth Moonshine: for, if you will know, :By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn : To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo. :This grisly beast, which by name Lion hight, :The trusty Thisby, coming first by night, :Did scare away, or rather did affright; :And as she fled, her mantle she did fall; : Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain: :Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth, and tall, : And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain; :Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, : He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast; :And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade, : His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest, :Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain, :At large discourse while here they do remain. PROLOGUE, THISBE, LION, and MOONSHINE. THESEUS :I wonder if the lion be to speak. DEMETRIUS :No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do. WALL :In this same interlude it doth befall :That I, one Snout by name, present a wall: :And such a wall as I would have you think :That had in it a crannied hole or chink, :Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby, :Did whisper often very secretly. :This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show :That I am that same wall; the truth is so: :And this the cranny is, right and sinister, :Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper. THESEUS :Would you desire lime and hair to speak better? DEMETRIUS :It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard :discourse, my lord. THESEUS :Pyramus draws near the wall; silence. PYRAMUS. PYRAMUS :O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black! : O night, which ever art when day is not! :O night, O night, alack, alack, alack, : I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!— :And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall, : That stand'st between her father's ground and mine; :Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, : Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne. holds up his fingers. Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this! : But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see. :O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss, : Curs'd be thy stones for thus deceiving me! THESEUS :The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again. PYRAMUS :No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me' is :Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through :the wall. You shall see it will fall pat as I told you.—Yonder :she comes. THISBE. THISBE :O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans, : For parting my fair Pyramus and me: :My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones: : Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee. PYRAMUS :I see a voice; now will I to the chink, :To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. :Thisby! THISBE : My love! thou art my love, I think. PYRAMUS :Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace; :And like Limander am I trusty still. THISBE :And I like Helen, till the fates me kill. PYRAMUS :Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true. THISBE :As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you. PYRAMUS :O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall. THISBE :I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all. PYRAMUS :Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway? THISBE :'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay. WALL :Thus have I, wall, my part discharged so; :And, being done, thus Wall away doth go. WALL, PYRAMUS and THISBE. THESEUS :Now is the mural down between the two neighbours. DEMETRIUS :No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear :without warning. HIPPOLYTA :This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. THESEUS :The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst :are no worse, if imagination amend them. HIPPOLYTA :It must be your imagination then, and not theirs. THESEUS :If we imagine no worse of them than they of :themselves, they may pass for excellent men. :Here come two noble beasts in, a moon and a lion. LION and MOONSHINE. LION :You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear : The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor, :May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here, : When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. :Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am :A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam: :For, if I should as lion come in strife :Into this place, 'twere pity on my life. THESEUS :A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience. DEMETRIUS :The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw. LYSANDER :This lion is a very fox for his valour. THESEUS :True; and a goose for his discretion. DEMETRIUS :Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his :discretion, and the fox carries the goose. THESEUS :His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; :for the goose carries not the fox. It is well; leave it to his :discretion, and let us listen to the moon. MOONSHINE :This lanthorn doth the horned moon present: DEMETRIUS :He should have worn the horns on his head. THESEUS :He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within :the circumference. MOONSHINE :This lanthorn doth the horned moon present; :Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be. THESEUS :This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be :put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' the moon? DEMETRIUS :He dares not come there for the candle: for, you :see, it is already in snuff. HIPPOLYTA :I am aweary of this moon: would he would change! THESEUS :It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he :is in the wane: but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must :stay the time. LYSANDER :Proceed, moon. MOON :All that I have to say, is to tell you that the lantern :is the moon; I, the man i' the moon; this thorn-bush, my :thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog. DEMETRIUS :Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all :these are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisbe. THISBE. THISBE :This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love? LION :Oh! LION roars.—THISBE runs off. DEMETRIUS :Well roared, lion. THESEUS :Well run, Thisbe. HIPPOLYTA :Well shone, moon.—Truly, the moon shines with a good grace. LION tears THISBE'S Mantle, and exit. THESEUS :Well moused, lion. DEMETRIUS :And so comes Pyramus. LYSANDER :And then the lion vanishes. PYRAMUS. PYRAMUS :Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; : I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright: :For, by thy gracious golden, glittering streams, : I trust to take of truest Thisby's sight. : But stay;—O spite! : But mark,—poor knight, : What dreadful dole is here! : Eyes, do you see? : How can it be? : O dainty duck! O dear! : Thy mantle good, : What! stained with blood? : Approach, ye furies fell! : O fates! come, come; : Cut thread and thrum; : Quail, rush, conclude, and quell! THESEUS :This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go :near to make a man look sad. HIPPOLYTA :Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man. PYRAMUS :O wherefore, nature, didst thou lions frame? : Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear; :Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame : That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer. : Come, tears, confound; : Out, sword, and wound : The pap of Pyramus: : Ay, that left pap, : Where heart doth hop:— : Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. : Now am I dead, : Now am I fled; : My soul is in the sky: : Tongue, lose thy light! : Moon, take thy flight! : Now die, die, die, die, die. Exit MOONSHINE. DEMETRIUS :No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one. LYSANDER :Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing. THESEUS :With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and prove an ass. HIPPOLYTA :How chance moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes :back and finds her lover? THESEUS :She will find him by starlight.—Here she comes; and :her passion ends the play. THISBE. HIPPOLYTA :Methinks she should not use a long one for such a :Pyramus: I hope she will be brief. DEMETRIUS :A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which :Thisbe, is the better. LYSANDER :She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes. DEMETRIUS :And thus she moans, videlicet.— THISBE : Asleep, my love? : What, dead, my dove? : O Pyramus, arise, : Speak, speak. Quite dumb? : Dead, dead? A tomb : Must cover thy sweet eyes. : These lily lips, : This cherry nose, : These yellow cowslip cheeks, : Are gone, are gone: : Lovers, make moan! : His eyes were green as leeks. : O Sisters Three, : Come, come to me, : With hands as pale as milk; : Lay them in gore, : Since you have shore : With shears his thread of silk. : Tongue, not a word:— : Come, trusty sword; : Come, blade, my breast imbrue; : And farewell, friends:— : Thus Thisby ends; : Adieu, adieu, adieu. Dies. THESEUS :Moonshine and lion are left to bury the dead. DEMETRIUS :Ay, and wall too. BOTTOM :No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. :Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask :dance between two of our company? THESEUS :No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no :excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there :need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played :Pyramus, and hang'd himself in Thisbe's garter, it would have :been a fine tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably :discharged. But come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone. a dance of Clowns. :The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:— :Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. :I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn, :As much as we this night have overwatch'd. :This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd :The heavy gait of night.—Sweet friends, to bed.— :A fortnight hold we this solemnity, :In nightly revels and new jollity. Exeunt. PUCK. PUCK : Now the hungry lion roars, : And the wolf behowls the moon; : Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, : All with weary task fordone. : Now the wasted brands do glow, : Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud, : Puts the wretch that lies in woe : In remembrance of a shroud. : Now it is the time of night : That the graves, all gaping wide, : Every one lets forth its sprite, : In the church-way paths to glide: : And we fairies, that do run : By the triple Hecate's team : From the presence of the sun, : Following darkness like a dream, : Now are frolic; not a mouse : Shall disturb this hallow'd house: : I am sent with broom before, : To sweep the dust behind the door. OBERON and TITANIA, with their Train. OBERON : Through the house give glimmering light, : By the dead and drowsy fire: : Every elf and fairy sprite : Hop as light as bird from brier: : And this ditty, after me, : Sing and dance it trippingly. TITANIA : First, rehearse your song by rote, : To each word a warbling note; : Hand in hand, with fairy grace, : Will we sing, and bless this place. and Dance. OBERON : Now, until the break of day, : Through this house each fairy stray, : To the best bride-bed will we, : Which by us shall blessed be; : And the issue there create : Ever shall be fortunate. : So shall all the couples three : Ever true in loving be; : And the blots of Nature's hand : Shall not in their issue stand: : Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, : Nor mark prodigious, such as are : Despised in nativity, : Shall upon their children be.— : With this field-dew consecrate, : Every fairy take his gate; : And each several chamber bless, : Through this palace, with sweet peace; : E'er shall it in safety rest, : And the owner of it blest. : Trip away: : Make no stay: : Meet me all by break of day. OBERON, TITANIA, and Train. PUCK : If we shadows have offended, : Think but this,—and all is mended,— : That you have but slumber'd here : While these visions did appear. : And this weak and idle theme, : No more yielding but a dream, : Gentles, do not reprehend; : If you pardon, we will mend. : And, as I am an honest Puck, : If we have unearned luck : Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, : We will make amends ere long; : Else the Puck a liar call: : So, good night unto you all. : Give me your hands, if we be friends, : And Robin shall restore amends. Exit. Category:Shakespeare